https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OR6A2

It’s likely linked to OR6A2.

I had a coworker who had this gene and TAS2R38, the one that makes people taste bitter stronger.

We ended up on several multi-country business trips together every year. So we were eating all sorts of local cuisine.

I always tried to sit where I could see her face during any meal. It was comedy gold at times.

They make their money from royalty payments for GMO traits. It’s up to 3x more profit than they get off the seed alone.

Stop your bullshit.

Not only are they fertile, it is standard protocol to purchase competitors hybrid F1 seed and produce F2 seed in most species (except corn). Eventually plant breeders create inbreds (self-pollinating for 6+ generation’s). These inbreds are the used to make new F1 hybrids. In Europe this is referred to as “plant breeders rights”.

In corn they have to get a little bit more creative. Corn breeders have to keep distinct genetically distant breeding pools to maintain heterosis in their the resulting hybrids. They pull traits from a competitors hybrid utilizing backcross breeding into their breeding pools.

Monsanto doesn’t even exist anymore. It was bought out by the totally not evil company Bayer a while back.

Of course Bayer has suffered quite a bit of indigestion over gobling up that morsel over the years.

Where the fuck do people come up with this shit?

No the “vast majority” of crops are not infertile. They are hybrids. Farmers buy the seeds because of a genetic phenomenon called heterosis AKA hybrid vigor. It takes expertise and a shit ton of money to make hybrid seed. If growers could get the same performance from saving their own seeds only an absolute dumbfuck would buy seeds from a seed company.

Now there are a few species that hybrids can only be made by taking advantage of mutants that have male sterility genes. The resulting hybrids are still fertile (produce viable female gametes) but need an outside source of pollen. Examples: onions, sunflowers and carrots.

The only “sterile” seed sold is seedless watermelon aka triploid seed. Seedless watermelons are only sold because the market demands it thanks to a push by the USDA after being created in Japan pre-WW2. The margins on seedless watermelon seed are often 40-50% less than hybrid diploid seed. And don’t get me started on the research cost - 14-15 generations for a new female line versus 7-8 for seeded types.

That’s exactly why the original terminator gene was a joint USDA-ARS /delta-pine effort. The USDA-ARS was looking for ways to prevent GMO species from escaping and causing issues.

You know the shit that actually happened. For example -

Creeping Bentgrass

https://www.opb.org/news/article/gmo-grass-oregon-creeping-bent-scotts-monsanto/

Wheat -

https://www.nature.com/articles/499262a

Corn/teosinte

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880918301075

Public indecency in front of a group of police officers was goto for many homeless people in my state. It’s a minor crime with up to 90 days in jail.

Flash th cops in late November, get out in early March.

Much safer than trying to live on the streets over the winter.

Yes.

For a long time identifying bacteria required growing them on different media. If then bacteria didn’t grow on the media, we didn’t know what it was. However for most pathogenic bacterium we did figure out how to culture them.

Then molecular biology advanced to a level where we can amplify and sequence a single bacterium’s DNA. This has led to a continuous stream of new species discoveries from different environments.

Finding a new pathogenic bacteria for humans is still a rare discovery.

Large corporations rarely innovate and try new things. Most innovation comes from smaller players with limited market share taking risks.

Large companies buy out smaller ones who create cash cows from taking large risks. The large company then milks the cash cows until they are completely dead.

The consolidation of studios to a few megacorporations has led to this inevitable end. The solution is simple: break them up. If we have 30 or so similar sized studios competing, we will get better movies/TV again.

I am of the opinion that most “supply” issues are due to investors. Except in certain geographic areas we do not have a shortage of actual physical housing. What we have is a shortage of available housing at a mixed pricepoints for purchase.

All housing that investors purchase for rentals removes it from the supply.

Traditionally investors have sought out entry level housing for rent. They invest in building rental complexes. They make all cash purchases and then rent it out to people who otherwise would have been first-time homebuyers. Investors used to be the low end offer. Blatant price fixing has increased rent outrageously. Now investors are the high end offer and removing supply constantly.

With AirB&B, the middle and even upper range market that traditionally has had less investor competition is now a major target. This has led to price wars for investment purposes on previously safe segments.

The first solution to the housing supply is simple: taxing income from rent so that selling the property is financially more lucrative. It will have to include a prohibition against rental increases to cover the taxes as well.

The second is to mandate zoning and new construction to match the market needs not the needs of the investors.

Last would be to create a program where builders who focus on entry level housing receive incentives from governments (also include hefty penalty for substandard construction).

When I worked in research our lab staff spoke 10 different languages.

After a couple of years, everyone swore fluently in 10 languages.

Airborne respiratory viruses in humans tend to decrease in lethality. This doesn’t really transfer anywhere else. The decrease in severity in is due to selection pressure from human quarantine behavior.

Killing the host is normal in single celled organisms. The most common method viruses leave the cell I by causing it to burst open.

Killing the host is also common in the plant world.

I get a picture of a receipt for my expense report.

Jobs was his own worst enemy for a while on the compatibility issue.

New OS launches- all your old programs don’t work on it.

Want to use a floppy to transfer files between a Dos/Win and a Mac? Nope, not compatible. When USB drives started coming out they dropped all support for floppy drives, even in machines with them installed.

Constant driver issues with all sorts of things. Many never got resolved. To be fair the market share for Mac’s was so tiny, offering support for them didn’t make business sense.

Want to play a game? Good luck. The majority of games didn’t work on Mac. Same reason as the drivers.

As for stability issues, for a while I ran a computer lab for a college 50:50 win/Mac machines. They both crashed about equally as often.

It’s ironic that what most people think of as a highly intelligent person is a polymath aka somebody who is an expert in multiple topics.

Academia today is designed for extreme specialization of knowledge. So it actively selects against anyone that would be classified as a polymath.

It’s a pretty big disconnect between expectations and reality.

Been on my own since I as 17. The first few years were rough to say the least.

I worked 2 jobs, 30-60 hrs per week and went to college. I shared shitty apartments with some pretty creepy people. I moved so constantly I ended up paying for a post office box so I could get my mail. I did not have a vehicle (no car) so I rode a bike for up to 60 miles per day. Even all that wasn’t enough without government grants and student loans to pay for college.

Food was something that I ate when I had it. I spent a few months with mybe 4-5 real meals. Cornflakes and ramen where the bulk of my diet for a while.

I took the first professional job I could find. It was terrible but it paid well. I gained 50lbs to be at a healthy weight the first year. The next few years I jumped around jobs until I landed in one I liked.

The last few weeks before I graduated college I met my wife. Her family has become mine over the past 25 years.

Today my income alone puts us in the top 10% of earners. My wife makes close to the same. At many crucual times in our lifes we’ve taken advantage of government assistance. To be blunt, it’s not possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You need a helping hand once in a while no matter how small.

It makes more sense if you use it as intended. It’s designed to be a simple way for farmers/gardeners to classify the basic soil composition by particle size.

Take a cup of dirt, put it in a mason jar, fill it full of water, put a lid on tight and shake the hell out of it. Come back in 3-4 days and measure the layers.

This comes in helpful in applying pesticides and basic water management. It’s pretty much pointless for anything else.

FYI medium sized dairies are being squeezed out by the government back oligopolies in milk processesing that completely control the milk prices.

Many of them also do not have enough land base to feed their animals and manage the waste. The cost remedy this is prohibitive due to mega corporate investment firms buying up land at extremely high prices.